Friday, April 17, 2009

Look Who's Back!

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Good morning, everyone. JA from MNPP here, popping my head in briefly to throw out some news that y'all might've spotted elsewhere but seems like something we need to discuss here. There once once a girl who played a girl in a movie her papa directed and she got a lot of shit for not being up to people's high expectations. She mostly went away for awhile but then popped back up and surprised the world by becoming a director of some stature herself. That girl - who one assumes reads notebooks while laying in fields with dandelion seeds drifting through the lazy breeze amid sun flares and tousled hair - well she's not made a movie in a couple of years, but she's finally announced her next project today. From Variety:

Sofia Coppola is checking into a new hotel for her next project

The writer-director who shot her "Lost in Translation" at the Park Hyatt in Tokyo, practically making a character out of the antiseptic structure, will set her next film at the iconic Chateau Marmont in Hollywood.

Stephen Dorff and Elle Fanning will star in the Focus Features dramedy "Somewhere," which Coppola penned.

Story centers on a bad-boy actor stumbling through a life of excess at the Chateau Marmont. With an unexpected visit from his 11-year-old daughter, he is forced to reexamine his life.

The filmmaker, who said she has been looking to make "an intimate story set in contemporary Los Angeles," received permission to shoot at the hotel, which has become notorious in recent years as a popular address for tabloid-friendly celebs. Film will lense in L.A. and Italy in June and July.

So what do we think? Honestly I would watch any and everything Coppola cooks up - she has earned that by making three brilliant films back to back to back. I'm extremely curious to see what she does with Dorff - he's always seemed to be a curious case with possibility that has never as far as I've seen gotten the chance to really exploit his natural charisma to its fullest extent.

Just a taste of Stephen Dorff's "Natural Charisma"

I always think of her as primarily a Women's Director - she's got such a rep for girl-flavored film-making - but she's done a fine job with the men-folk too. Not that Bill Murray has really ever failed to captivate me (then again, I've avoided Operation Dumbo Drop Larger Than Life) but his work in Lost In Translation stands very tall in my mind of male performances in our current decade. And then there's The Other Fanning, joining the ranks of Johannsen & Dunst in "Blond Girls Caressed By Sophia's Camera." Can't wait!

7 comments:

Runs Like A Gay said...

Been a bit excited about this news since I saw it on Variety. Great director, interesting cast, fabulous building - what's not to like.

And I wonder if the opening credits will play against Dorff's bum.

Wayne B. said...

WOO-HOO! Sofia Coppola! I'm filmgasming already. Cool casting, I soo prefer Elle to Dakota.

Runs Like A Gay - that would be an awesome opening title sequence :)

NATHANIEL R said...

wayne and runs ~ but would coppola really put him in pink panties for a through line?

BLH said...

I think you mean Larger Than Life, not Operation Dumbo Drop.

And ya think there'll be any autobiographical leanings to this one?

Jason Adams said...

Indeed; I got my elephant-comedies crossed. My bad.

re: the auto-bio question, how awesome would it be if Giovanni Ribisi's Spike Jonze-ish photog. or Anna Faris' Cameron Diaz-ish actress showed up, even just in the background? Awesome!

Paul Outlaw said...

As long as she doesn't have SD shave his chest, I'm down with the casting.

Marshall said...

Thank you for not including a natural charisma still of Dorff from SHADOWBOXER. Anyone who's seen it knows what I'm talking about.

This is a big year for him, with PUBLIC ENEMIES and his being cast in this.